Testing, Testing, Testing

Everyone keeps asking if I’m packed and I have to say that is the

The many moods of Oscar this year

least of my worries.  I do believe that packing is the easiest part of this thing.  You know what you’re packing: clothes, medications, underwear, shoes, etc, but all the other little things are the things that make a trip like this hard.  When you take a week off and go somewhere (like most normal people in America), you just leave for a  week and find someone to water the flowers while you’re 

hitting the ground with some spending money

 gone.  But, when you’re gone for almost a month, there’s a lot of little piddly things that have nothing to do with travel that need their own checklist.  Stop the mail, don’t buy flowers that will die while we’re gone, take Oscar’s books back to the library, pay bills that will come due while we’re gone, set up the voicemail and work email to say that

Daddy's playing music he likes today

 you’re gone, get a global plan through Verizon so that John and I can actually communicate in France, alert the banks that no one else is leaving the country with the credit cards, it’s just us.  And the thing about that last one was, when I told the Citibank automated machine that I wanted to give them “travel” plans, it said back to me that I would be in France and the Netherlands from May 13 to the 30^th, was there something I wanted to add?  Freaked me right out about the Big Brother system until John reminded me that I bought mine and Oscar’s plane tickets on that card….still, pretty presumptuous of them in some ways….Handy in other ways.   

being good in a public

 We are on to the second trip to Europe with Oscar and this will be our first time returning to the city that we first learned that I was pregnant with him, so it’s kind of cool to see him there.  At least he got out of the terrible two’s/terrifying three’s some before we planned this, I’m actually looking forward to this trip with him where he can communicate with me and we can plan things together.  You can all remember that I said this at the 

Bill's 90th birthday lunch at KJ's and it was great to have Julie stay with us for the week

being quiet while the adults talk

beginning, but we’ll see how long it lasts.  On the other hand, I’m travelling with the kid who the other night stopped John’s ramblings about how killer whales weren’t really killers with, “Killer means kills Daddy”.  Yes, we’re already being corrected by our 3 and a half year old on facts.  Another change to the trip, I’m taking a picnic blanket.  That’s the vibe I’m going to try to foster this year instead of trying to do things that don’t make sense like see things that a 3 year old has no interest in, or drive myself crazy trying to see as much as possible.  We will be doing “native” things this time and becoming culturally immersed…. If you can be immersed in Paris by going to Disneyland…..